On Wednesday, the United States House of Representatives approved the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 on a party-line vote of 220 to 112 with only two Democratic Congressman, Jared Golden of Maine and Ron Kind of Wisconsin opposing the measure, and Republican Rep. Lance Gooden (R- Texas) stating after the fact that he had voted for it by accident and will correct his vote against the legislation.

The bill comes nine months after Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed by Minneapolis police officers last Spring.

In the initial wake of Floyd’s death, a similar iteration of the bill, introduced by Representative Karen Bass (D- California) cleared the House in 2020 but did not advance through the Republican-controlled Senate that year. Democrats, who have since reclaimed a very slim majority in the Senate as a consequence of the 2020 General election, are hopeful that the legislation will advance through the Senate this year. Even still, it will be an uphill climb for Senate Democrats who will have to convince ten of their Republican colleagues to support the bill in order to meet the sixty-vote threshold currently required by the filibuster to pass legislation.

Among the wide-ranging police reforms sought by House Democrats, the bill seeks to: ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants; eliminate qualified immunity for law enforcement; mandate data collection on police encounters; prohibit racial and religious profiling, and redirect funding to community-based policing programs.

In a Twitter post on February 25th, President Biden affirmed his support for the legislation and his hopes to sign the landmark police reform bill into law should it reach his desk.